The present invention relates to a process for producing tablets, for example, for producing laundry and other detergent tablets, tablets for producing aqueous binder systems (wallpaper paste tablet), tablets for pharmaceutical or cosmetic applications or tablets for the agricultural sector, comprising one or more active substances, in which the starting components are shaped and then solidified.
Tablets, also referred to as shaped bodies, are a widely used product form in pharmacy and in chemical technology. They are normally composed of one or more active substances (e.g., drug) and, if desired, additions of fillers, binders, and lubricants. Another field of use is that of laundry and other detergents.
The tableted products have a number of advantages over the originally unshaped constituents: they are easier to dose and to handle and owing to their compact structure have advantages in storage and during transportation. The tablets are generally produced in special tableting machines, using eccentric and rotary presses. The unformed starting constituents, frequently powders, are either compressed directly or else granulated beforehand in order to improve the flow properties and adhesion properties of the starting components.
The production of tablets using tableting machines is very complicated, since pressure-sensitive components in particular can only be used to a restricted extent. Another possibility for producing tablets is to process the ingredients in the form of melts, e.g., to use a meltable material as matrix material for the other ingredients and then to shape the melt. Processing in a melt also has the disadvantage that temperature-sensitive ingredients can be incorporated only to a small extent, if at all. Moreover, the disintegration characteristics of tablets produced in this way are often unsatisfactory.
The object on which the present invention is based was to provide a simple process for producing tablets, especially laundry and other detergent tablets, tablets for producing binder systems or tablets for cosmetic applications, and also for the agricultural sector, in which the tablets can be obtained with almost no thermal or pressure load.